Trio Share Medicine Nobel

S T O C K H O L M, Oct. 9 -- Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard and EricKandel won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveriesconcerning how messages are transmitted in the nervous system, workthat has paid off for treating Parkinson’s disease.

The three Nobel laureates will share the $915,000 prize fortheir pioneering discoveries concerning one way brain cells sendmessages to each other, according to the award citation.

These discoveries have been crucial for an understanding of thenormal function of the brain. In addition, it laid the groundworkfor developing the standard treatment for Parkinson’s disease andcontributed to the development a class of antidepressants thatincludes Prozac, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute said today.

Carlsson, 77, is with the University of Goteborg in Sweden,Greengard, 74, is with Rockefeller University in New York andKandel, 70, is an Austrian-born U.S. citizen with ColumbiaUniversity in New York.

More to Come

The winners of the prizes for physics and chemistry will beannounced Tuesday and for economics — the only one not establishedin Nobel’s will — on Wednesday in Stockholm.

The awards culminate Friday with the coveted peace prize inOslo, Norway.

Carlsson’s studies during the late 1950s led to the discovery ofthe drug L-dopa, used to treat Parkinson’s disease, which is stillthe most important treatment for the disease, the committee said.

Greengard was awarded for his discovery of how dopamine andother chemical messengers shuttle messages between brain cells.Kandel was cited for his research on the biology of memory, showingthe importance of changes in the synapse, a tiny gap between braincells where messages are transmitted.

Suspense Over Literature

This year’s award for medicine was bumped to the top slot afterthe academy failed to reach a decision last week on the literatureprize — usually the first announced.

The Swedish Academy, which traditionally keeps the date of theliterature prize secret until a couple days before it announces thewinner, has not set a time yet, but it is always a Thursday,usually in October.